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Weather: A 30 percent chance of showers. Mostly sunny, with a high near 79. Saturday Night: A 50 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 61.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
The Saturday Flagler Beach Farmers Market is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. today at Wickline Park, 315 South 7th Street, featuring prepared food, fruit, vegetables , handmade products and local arts from more than 30 local merchants. The market is hosted by Flagler Strong, a non-profit.
Coffee With Commissioner Scott Spradley: Flagler Beach Commission Chairman Scott Spradley hosts his weekly informal town hall with coffee and doughnuts at 9 a.m. at his law office at 301 South Central Avenue, Flagler Beach. All subjects, all interested residents or non-residents welcome. The gatherings usually feature a special guest.
2025 History Academy Talk Presented by the Palm Coast Historical Society, 10 a.m. at the Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway. To register for this free lecture, please call 386-986-2323 or register online. www.parksandrec.fun or The Academy is organized by Dr. Elaine Studnicki. Today’s talk: “The Ten Foods of Florida,” by Dr. Gary Mormino. This illustrated talk also discusses Cortez mullet, Vernon gophers, LaBelle swamp cabbage, Ybor City Cuban bread, stone-ground grits, Immokalee tomatoes, and Hastings potatoes and the lamentation of the decline of iconic foods such as whole-hog BBQ and Apalachicola oyster
Second Saturday Plant Sale at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park, 6400 North Oceanshore Blvd., Palm Coast, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Flowers, bushes and hard to find plants. The event is sponsored by the Friends of Washington Oaks. Regular entrance fee applies: $4 per vehicle with one person aboard, $5 for vehicles with more than one person.
American Association of University Women (AAUW) Monthly Meeting, 11 a.m. at Cypress Knoll Golf Club, 53 Easthampton Blvd, Palm Coast. A monthly speaker is featured. Lunch is available for $20 in cash, $21 by credit card, but must be ordered in advance. The lunch menu is available on our website. Lunch may be ordered by sending an email to: [email protected].
Gamble Jam: Musicians of all ages can bring instruments and chairs and join in the jam session, 2 to 4 p.m. The program is free with park admission! Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area at Flagler Beach, 3100 S. Oceanshore Blvd., Flagler Beach, FL. Call the Ranger Station at (386) 517-2086 for more information. The Gamble Jam is a family-friendly event that occurs every second and fourth Saturday of the month. The park hosts this acoustic jam session at one of the pavilions along the river to honor the memory of James Gamble Rogers IV, the Florida folk musician who lost his life in 1991 while trying to rescue a swimmer in the rough surf.
‘The Drowsy Chaperone,’ at St. Augustine’s Limelight Theatre, 11 Old Mission Avenue, St. Augustine, 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, $35. When wealthy widow, Mrs. Tottenham, hosts the wedding of the year, she gets a lot more than a write-up in the society pages. This magical piece of meta-theatre and playful, heartfelt parody of the 1920s musical comedy features a chirpy jazz age score by Tony-winning collaborators. Book here.
Grace Community Food Pantry, 245 Education Way, Bunnell, drive-thru open today from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The food pantry is organized by Pastor Charles Silano and Grace Community Food Pantry, a Disaster Relief Agency in Flagler County. Feeding Northeast Florida helps local children and families, seniors and active and retired military members who struggle to put food on the table. Working with local grocery stores, manufacturers, and farms we rescue high-quality food that would normally be wasted and transform it into meals for those in need. The Flagler County School District provides space for much of the food pantry storage and operations. Call 386-586-2653 to help, volunteer or donate.
Notably: From the Department of What Are the Chances. I’d just been reading Steinbeck’s Wayward Bus, one of his lesser-known but better novels, that one from 1947, about a motley group of people, few of them eliciting sympathy at first, stranded in a California relay as their bus is fixed. The strength of the novel is in its mercilessly observed subtexts. Every character is not what he or she seems. Every character is a closet of skeletons. Juan Chicoy is the bus driver. He also owns the relay restaurant and auto repair shop where the first half of the novel takes place, before the travelers board the repaired bus and drive on, under torrential rains (so they can get stuck down the road and allow for more conflicts and a bit of sex to play out between the characters). Juan is married to an angry-woman-hating drunk who drives off every waitress she hires with her bile. Juan has a thing for Our Lady of Guadalupe. He puts his trust in her. She is his copilot. He depends on her to get him out of all his messes. When she fails him, he rebels, he runs off, leaving the bus, which by then has gotten stuck in the mud, with all its passengers, stranded again. He aims for Mexico. He doesn’t get further than a cave, where one of the younger women in the bus, the daughter of a prim and proper Republican couple, joins him for a tryst. Maybe it’s his Lady of Guadalupe. Tryst over, he returns to the bus, fixes it again, and drives on. I had vaguely heard of Our Lady of Guadalupe from time to time. But at the very time when I was nearing the end of the novel I found myself walking to the Publix in Flagler Beach one evening, and there, on the pavement, was the little card you see above: Our Lady of Guadalupe. I don’t see much in coincidences other than coincidences: live enough minutes and you’ll get your share. The absence of coincidences would be the mathematical impossibility. I also don’t, unfortunately believe in ladies–of Guadalupe, of Lourdes or of or of Lebanon. I am no less moved by what they evoke, and what they mean to people, and in that sense they come alive and touch us to the core. Here’s what was on the back side of the card, which I picked up and have since placed as a permanent bookmark in the Steinbeck volume containing the no longer Wayward Bus: “Remember, O most gracious Virgin of Guadalupe, that in your apparitions on Mount Tepeyac you promised to show pity and compassion to all who, loving and trusting you, seek your help and protection. Accordingly, listen now to our supplications and grant us consolation and relief. We are full of hope that, relying on your help, nothing can trouble or affect us. As you have remained with us through your admirable image, so now obtain for us the graces we need. Amen.”
—P.T.
Now this:
The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
March 2025
Saturday, Mar 08
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Law Office of Scott Spradley
Saturday, Mar 08
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
315 South 7th Street, Flagler Beach
Saturday, Mar 08
Second Saturday Plant Sale at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
Saturday, Mar 08
2025 History Academy Talk: The Ten Foods of Florida
Palm Coast Community Center
Saturday, Mar 08
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Flagler School District Bus Depot
Saturday, Mar 08
American Association of University Women (AAUW) Meeting
Cypress Knoll Golf and Country Club
Saturday, Mar 08
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area at Flagler Beach
Saturday, Mar 08
‘The Drowsy Chaperone,’ at St. Augustine’s Limelight Theatre
Sunday, Mar 09
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Presbyterian Church
Sunday, Mar 09
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Flagler School District Bus Depot
Sunday, Mar 09
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Sunday, Mar 09
‘The Drowsy Chaperone,’ at St. Augustine’s Limelight Theatre
Sunday, Mar 09
Al-Anon Family Groups
No event found!
For the full calendar, go here.
Where the windshield angled in the middle and the center of support went up, sitting on top of the dashboard was a small metal Virgin of Guadalupe painted in brilliant colors. Her rays were gold and her robe was blue and she stood on the new moon, which was supported by cherubs. This was Juan Chicoy’s connection with eternity. It had little to do with religion as connected with the church and dogma, and much to do with religion as memory and feeling. This dark Virgin was his mother and the dim house where she, speaking Spanish with a little brogue, had nursed him. For his mother had made the Virgin of Guadalupe her own personal goddess. Out had gone St. Patrick and St. Bridget and the ten thousand pale virgins of the North, and into her had entered this dark one who had blood in her veins and a close connection with people. His mother admired her Virgin, whose day is celebrated with exploding skyrockets, and, of course, Juan Chicoy’s Mexican father didn’t think of it one way or another. Skyrockets were by nature the way to celebrate Saints’ Days. Who could think otherwise? The rising, hissing tube was obviously the spirit rising to Heaven, and the big, flashing bang at the top was the dramatic entrance to the throne room of Heaven. Juan Chicoy, while not a believer in an orthodox sense, now he was fifty, would nevertheless have been uneasy driving the bus without the Guadalupana to watch over him. His religion was practical.
–From Steinbeck’s The Wayward Bus (1949).
The Cartoon and Live Briefing Archive.
